How to Get Ideas, 2nd Edition

5.Rejoíce ín Faílure

It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.

Gore Vidal

The theory seems to be that so long as a man is a failure he is one of God’s chillun, but that as soon as he has any luck he owes it to the Devil.

H. L. Mencken

I picture my epitaph: “Here lies Paul Newman, who died a failure because his eyes turned brown.”

Paul Newman

To swear off making mistakes is easy. All you have to do is swear off having ideas.

Leo Burnett

Here are five reasons why you should make failure a friend:

1. The only way to know that you’ve gone far enough is to go too far. And going too far is called failing.

But if you don’t go far enough in searching for an idea—if you don’t, in other words, fail—you can’t be sure you’ve got the best idea.

So never ...